Can I keep within my ecological means when I need a new computer? Honestly, no.

While I pondered what living within my ecological and financial means would look like, my email provider cut me off: my 2011 computer is no longer compatible with updated infrastructure.

Is it possible to have a computer and live within my ecological means?

Honestly, I have to say No.

Do I want to continue participating in society?

I do.

I bought a refurbished 2020 computer, which my computer wizard says should last three years.

I still wonder how to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, extracted ores and international supply chains…and keep connected to the Internet.

To begin, I figure I’ve got to learn about computers’ supply chains. So, I’ve revised my piece about the substances in a smartphone—a mobile computer.

One more note. While looking for work to pay for this newer computer, I found jobs editing A.I.s’ writing.

I’m not up for that.

CONSIDER SILICON

Computers depend on transistors—tiny electronic switches that store and process information. Transistors are made from silicon, an element not found in nature in pure form. To get electronic (or solar) grade silicon, manufacturers:

1) extract pure quartz gravel, a pure carbon (like petroleum coke—an oil byproduct) and dense wood.

2) Ship these to a smelter kept at 3000° Fahrenheit. Smelters are powered by coal, natural gas, nuclear and/or hydropower, since solar PVs or wind turbines provide only intermittent power, and disrupting electricity’s delivery to a smelter and could blow it up. The smelter “reduces” the silicon from the ore.

Since this first smelter can produce 98% pure silicon, and electronics require silicon with only one impurity part per billion, we’ve still got several more energy-intensive, toxic-waste-emitting steps to go.

Of course, manufacturing any mass-produced item (including solar PVs, vehicles with computers, appliances, TVs, etc.) involves fossil fuels, water, smelters, refineries, chemicals, plastics, intercontinental shipping, worker hazards and toxic waste.

Would tracing the supply chain of one substance in a computer or smartphone move users toward reducing dependence on international supply chains? Would it encourage us to move toward living within our ecological means?

Here’s my invitation:

STEP 1: Pick one substance used in manufacturing a smartphone

The Screen: Aluminosilicate glass, aluminum, aluminum oxide, cerium, fluorinated greenhouse gas (F-GHG), gorilla glass, indium tin oxide, lead, lithium, nitric acid, oxide of silicon, potassium nitrate, sapphire, silicon dioxide, sulfuric acid, tin oxide.

The Battery: Aluminum, cadmium, carbon graphite, coal tar, cobalt, coltan, copper, graphite, lead, lithium cobalt oxide, lithium, manganese, mercury, nickel-metal hydride, organohalogen compounds, tantalum, zinc.

The Case: Aluminum alloys, bromine, magnesium, nickel, plastic, tin.

The Electronics (the circuit board, wiring, speakers, motors): Acetone, acetylene gas, antimony, arsenic, arsenic pentafluoride, arsine gas, benzene, beryllium, beryllium oxide, boron, boron tri-chloride (BC13), boron trifluoride, cadmium, charcoal, chlorofluorocarbons, chloroform, chromium, coal, copper, diborane, dysprosium, eucalyptus trees, gallium, gadolinium, gold, glycol ethers, hafnium, hydrochloric acid (HCL), hydrogen, hydrogen chloride gas, hydrofluoric acid, indium, lanthanum, lead, methylene chloride, neodymium-iron-boron, nickel, perchloroethylene, petroleum coke, palladium, phosphine, phosphorous, platinum, polychlorinated biphenyl, potassium, praseodynmium, quartz, scandium, silicon tetrachloride, silicon wafers, silver, sulfur dioxide, tantalum, terbium, tin, titanium aluminum nitride, titanium nitride, toluene, tri-chloroethylene (TCE), tungsten, water, wood, xylene, yttrium, zinc.

STEP 2: Describe your substance’s function.

STEP 3: Trace its supply chain—and reference your answers.

If your substance is an ore:

1. In what countries is it mined?

2. Who owns the mines?

3. Exactly what work do miners do? How much do they earn? Do any children mine this ore? How does mining it impact miners’ health?

4. How much water does rinsing the ore require? How does mining it impact the region's waterways, wildlife and farms?

5. How many smelters does this ore require to become usable in a smartphone? By what means (air, ship, truck, train) does it travel to refineries?

6. How much electricity does each smelter consume? What fuel(s) power the smelter? What toxins and emissions does it generate?

7. How/does smelting this ore impact the region's power grid?

8. Do any regulations protect miners, refinery workers, wildlife and public health near the mines and refineries?

9. In what year did mining this ore begin?

10. When will it be depleted?

11. Can this substance be recycled? How much energy, water and toxins are involved in recycling it?

For chemicals:

1. What countries produce this chemical?

2. What companies produce it?

3. List your chemical’s ingredients.

4. How much do chemical factory workers earn? How does the work impact their health?

5. What toxins does this factory generate? Where do they go?

6. What regulations protect waterways, wildlife and public health around the manufacturing plant?

7. How is the chemical transported from its manufacturing plant to its next station?

8. Are less toxic alternatives to this chemical available?

STEP 4: Share your findings with classmates, neighbors, co-workers.

STEP 5: Reduce your digital footprint

Limit video use. Delete unused data. No electronics for children until they master reading, writing and math on paper. Wait at least four years to upgrade a device or service. Quit buying new equipment. Do not use A.I. Enact right-to-repair legislation. Access free repair manuals at ifixit.com. On websites, compress image files, disable unnecessary plug-ins, limit data-intensive flashing photos and videos. Discover and share ways to reduce.

STEP 6: Insist that manufacturers prioritize safer chemicals, less extractions and worker protections

Buy raw materials only from sources that verify worker and environmental protections. Make modular, repairable electronics that reuse and repurpose ink cartridges and batteries. Make battery replacement easy and fire-safe. At the design stage, plan for a device’s second life.

STEP 7: Trace supply chains involved in the Internet’s data centers and access networks—and in electricity, solar PVs, industrial wind turbines, vehicles, battery energy storage systems and more!

RESOURCES For RESEARCH

Chemicals

Compound Interest, “The Chemical Elements of a Smartphone,” Feb., 2014. www.compoundchem.com/2014/02/19/the-chemical-elements-of-a-smartphone/

Green Chemistry & Commerce Council https://greenchemistryandcommerce.org/about-gc3/introduction

Green Screen for Safer Chemicals: finding safer chemicals and environmentally preferable products.

https://www.greenscreenchemicals.org/

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition www.svtc.org

White, Heather and Lynn Zhang, "Complicit," 2017. Film about computer assembly workers' exposure to n-hexane.

Energy

Coma, Miguel, “Energy policies in the hyperconnected era: 5G’s environmental paradox.”

Smil, Vaclav, “Your Phone Costs Energy—Even Before You Turn It On,” IEEE Spectrum, April 2016.

Mining and Smelting

Amnesty International and African Resources Watch, "This is What We Die For: Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Power the Global Trade in Cobalt," 2016.

Choi, Hye-Bin, et al., "The impact of anthropogenic inputs on lithium content in river and tap water," Nature Communications, 2019.

Jensen, Derrick, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, Monkfish, 2021. Ecological impacts of manufacturing, operating and discarding “renewable” power systems. (Computers demand similar substances.) See also Julia Barnes’ documentary, “Bright Green Lies.”

Kara, Siddharth, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, St. Martin’s, 2023.

Katwala, Amit, "The spiraling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction," 8.5.18.

Klinger, Julie Michelle, Rare Earth Frontiers: from Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes, Cornell University Press, 2017.

Troszak, Thomas, "Why Do We Burn Coal and Trees for Solar Panels?" Describes manufacturing silicon for solar panels. (Electronic-grade silicon needs more purity than solar-grade silicon.)

Sovacool, Benjamin K., et al., "Sustainable minerals and metals for a low-carbon future," Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6473, 3 January 2020.

Standefer, Katherine, Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of a Life, Hachette, 2020. Standefer traveled to the mines and assembly plants involved in her defibrillator’s elements.

Shipping

Mims, Christopher, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door—Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy, HarperCollins 2021.

Waste

Lepawsky, Josh, Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste, MIT Press, 2018.

McGovern, Gerry, World Wide Waste: How Digital is Killing Our Planet and What to Do About It, Silver Beach, 2020.

Washington Post, 2018. During recycling, iPhones and other gadgets catch fire.

Water

Asianometry, “The Big Semiconductor Water Problem,” 2022.

Workers

Heather White, “Modern Slavery and Your Devices: Global Violations in Electronics Supply Chain,” 2020.

More

Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, 2018, a map of human labor, data and planetary resources. www.anatomyof.ai

DeDecker, Kris, www.lowtechmagazine.com

www.katiesinger.substack.com